Crossover assembly 101

This thread is a sticky and I missed it before putting together my XO for my N2X. Really could have done a better job had I seen this earlier. Anyways thanks for the detailed explanation Danny. Sure is a lifesaver for total noobs like me.

If you are putting together a crossover for boxes built by Jon Parkhurst for the Super V and have upgraded to the Jupiter Cap make sure your board material is no thicker than 1/4" otherwise the Jupiter cap will hit and the beautiful cover Jon built will now sit flat but sit up on the cap. No

I was trying to utilize some of the Richie method when assembling this crossover. This was a "prototype", I have since shrunk the board a little and V2 is underway.

Missing the woofer output terminals, but you get the idea. Input on the top, outputs on the bottom. All point to point except I will need a jumper for the negatives.

I noticed that I overtightened a couple zip ties, and put light indentations on one of the Solen Fast Caps... is that going to be a problem? Sure hope not. :/ The tweeter capacitor is getting replaced with a Clarity Cap PX...

Ahh, I see. There is a big gap between the Clarity and Dayton. Even if it's just in a bypass section of the network, you may still think about moving up a step at a later time.

There is no Dayton anything in this crossover. Those are 400V Solen Fastcaps. Plus the Clarity Cap will be inline with the tweeter as opposed to going to ground as in the woofer circuit. But I digress.

Still wondering about: "I noticed that I overtightened a couple zip ties, and put light indentations on one of the Solen Fast Caps... is that going to be a problem? Sure hope not. :/ " I guess I'll bust out the multimeter when I get home and check the values.

I have no problem with you posting pics of your crossover here. This is an informative thread and things like this adds further information.

One thing that will degrade the sound is the insertion of the little terminals to accept slip on connectors. There is no reason to break the pathway and insert a piece of Tin or Aluminum. Just getting those out of the path will be a notable improvement.

Squeezing the cap will effect the value. Even holding it in your hand can do that as well. The heat and pressure from your hand can sway the value one way or another. I can watch that on my measuring system pretty easily. Don't fret too much though. It will likely have only moved its value 1/2 of a % or less. I'd be surprised if it shifted 1%. It is already +/-5% tolerance so there is no telling where it really is to begin with.

Another thing to keep in mind is the quality of the iron core slug and its effect. It looks pretty small so that would be a concern to me. I wouldn't use any iron core inductor on anything covering any mid-range areas. 200Hz or less is fine though. Then again the rest of the parts are not exactly top notch either. So it just depends on the speaker and what it will be used for. These my be used in a public address speaker for all I know and in that case the quality of the parts are fine.

If you are willing to spend Clarity Cap money on the tweeter circuit then you might also consider some Sonicaps. It is a better quality cap and I send them out in matched pairs at no additional cost.

I have no problem with you posting pics of your crossover here. This is an informative thread and things like this adds further information.

One thing that will degrade the sound is the insertion of the little terminals to accept slip on connectors. There is no reason to break the pathway and insert a piece of Tin or Aluminum. Just getting those out of the path will be a notable improvement.

Squeezing the cap will effect the value. Even holding it in your hand can do that as well. The heat and pressure from your hand can sway the value one way or another. I can watch that on my measuring system pretty easily. Don't fret too much though. It will likely have only moved its value 1/2 of a % or less. I'd be surprised if it shifted 1%. It is already +/-5% tolerance so there is no telling where it really is to begin with.

Another thing to keep in mind is the quality of the iron core slug and its effect. It looks pretty small so that would be a concern to me. I wouldn't use any iron core inductor on anything covering any mid-range areas. 200Hz or less is fine though. Then again the rest of the parts are not exactly top notch either. So it just depends on the speaker and what it will be used for. These my be used in a public address speaker for all I know and in that case the quality of the parts are fine.

If you are willing to spend Clarity Cap money on the tweeter circuit then you might also consider some Sonicaps. It is a better quality cap and I send them out in matched pairs at no additional cost.

Your board layout looks fine, BTW.

Thanks for your reply and taking a look. Not a PA speaker. I talked to them about upgrading the steel laminate core Inductor to an air-core, and they said to match the DCR would require something like a 12 gauge air-core. Then again, the difference between 0.3 ohms and 0.6 ohms is probably less than I think. It's in-line with a $60 woofer.

The inductors are decent, they are hand-wound with "five nines" copper, so probably better than the 96% copper Jantzen air cores that are so popular. I upgraded to lynk resistors as well over sandcast.

The little metal clips I am actually going to use as solder points- going to solder the leads to one point and the stranded wire to the other. I am not going to use quick disconnects on the board, but I do use to connect to driver tabs, since I'm wary of soldering to my drivers.

The output differences from 16 gauge to 14 gauge measures about 1/10th of a db in output. Going from 14 gauge to 12 gauge also changes output by about 1/10th of a db.

Sometimes the difference in the resistance can be used to reduce bass output.

Differences are subtle between gauges sometimes. Differences in smearing caused by an iron core slug is not so subtle.

The rest of the inductors are fine.

I wouldn't even use those terminals as a soldering point. The solder is not a great conductor either. Solder is mostly Tin and Led. It should really be welding the connection not making the connection. So don't think of it as the conductor but a binder that keeps it from coming apart.

I wouldn't add connectors to the drivers either. No worries. Just place the wire flat on the terminal and solder it on. The fact that you have a lot of stripped wire touching the terminal is the connection. The solder is just holding it there.

I've done some research on soldering. But now you have me worried about soldering OFC to drivers. Do I need a heatsink? I watched some basic tutorials on soldering, but either missed or didn't even see anything mentioning damaging voice coils with excessive heat.

I've done some research on soldering. But now you have me worried about soldering OFC to drivers. Do I need a heatsink? I watched some basic tutorials on soldering, but either missed or didn't even see anything mentioning damaging voice coils with excessive heat.

I am building av-1 mini monitors.

Ben

If you are quick on and off the drivers terminals then there is no problem. I use a really hot gun and can get it taken care of in about two to three seconds. Just don't use a low powered gun on it holding it on there for a long time trying to melt the solder. That is when you are putting a lot of heat into the terminals.

The tweeter is the most sensitive to heat time. It won't hurt the voice coil as fast as it will melt the plastic tabs that hold the terminals. They will melt off before you overheat any voice coils.

I've done some research on soldering. But now you have me worried about soldering OFC to drivers. Do I need a heatsink? I watched some basic tutorials on soldering, but either missed or didn't even see anything mentioning damaging voice coils with excessive heat.

Too many moons ago, my very first job was installing car stereos, and I soldered wires to the speakers without a heatsink. But the use of a heatsink is just always a good simple safety measure.

Too much heat can ruin anything. And if the voice coil tinsel leads are soldered to a terminal block, obviously too much heat applied to the same terminal block to solder the crossover wires could inadvertantly desolder them as well.

Okay, I'm going full monte while displaying mostly ignorance. I was going to get a cheap iron from menards. Rated at 30 watts, I think.

I don't know how often I will use this tool. I was informed to look for between 15 and 30 watts. I know $5 is cheap. So going for more heat sounds like the right thing to do. They have guns rated up to 100 watts. Should I use that instead? How hot should I go?

30 watts should be fine. I have a 40W iron that with proper technique I can solder RCA plugs and even speaker binding posts. Make a good mechanical connection of the wire to the terminal, apply some solder to the tip so that you get good heat contact applied to the mechanical junction and feed the solder and let it flow into the heated junction, not into the soldering iron tip.

It helps to make a few practice joints, whether it's wire to terminal or even just wire to wire.